


a suburban mars

by viktory_arts



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: ADHD, Attempt at Humor, Canon Compliant, Fluff and Angst, Getting Together, Hinata Shouyou Has ADHD, Kageyama Tobio has Social Anxiety, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Pre-Canon, Pre-Relationship, Pre-Slash, Social Anxiety
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-15
Updated: 2020-03-15
Packaged: 2021-03-01 05:33:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,183
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23160112
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/viktory_arts/pseuds/viktory_arts
Summary: Kageyama Tobio had always felt petrified of people. Volleyball was his only reprieve against the choking and immense panic that speaking to people gave him.Then Karasuno appeared like a solid ground in Kageyama's shaky world, steadying his teetering body on the tightrope he was walking on.And with the appearance of Karasuno, so did Hinata Shouyou.How will Kageyama cope with the boy that made him feel like he was on shaky ground again? Will he either be saved by him, or will he be forever shaken by him?
Relationships: Hinata Shouyou/Kageyama Tobio, Minor or Background Relationship(s)
Comments: 5
Kudos: 97





	a suburban mars

Kageyama Tobio always felt… wrong. Like his skin was too tight, like he was too big for his body. He felt awkward and uncoordinated, his limbs too long and too gangly for his body. Whenever he had to talk to someone, his tongue felt like it was swelled up, too large for his mouth and thus made it impossible to speak. When he had to speak to others, it felt like he was choking and on the verge of crying. He  _ hated _ speaking to others, and his team, Kitagawa Daiichi, included. He was always told that he said things  _ wrong _ , said them  _ meanly _ when he was only trying to give people tips and pointers on how to be better. So that they could win.

Tobio just felt that it was just… pointless to try and understand people. Whenever he spoke, he said something wrong. Whenever he spoke, he said something that made him look stupid, mean, and more awkward than he already was. His teammates made sure he knew that he said stuff wrong; they did this with dirty looks and half-baked excuses on why they couldn’t work with Tobio. 

“Why not go to the coaches about this, Tobio-chan?” The raven-haired boy was told by his grandmother one night when he was complaining about this over a steaming bowl of katsudon. Just the thought of having to talk to an adult that wasn’t his grandmother made his stomach lurch, and he suddenly didn’t feel quite as hungry. What if they said that what he was complaining about was stupid? What if Tobio was just being childish?

The blue-eyed teen didn’t notice that his breathing was getting uneven, his chest rising and falling at disjointed times. His grandmother noticed this, however. She quickly got up, and hugged him with her skinny arms. The cotton of her blouse rubbed against his sensitive skin. It felt like it was too much for Tobio to handle. She started to whisper sweet nothings into his ear, trying to calm the panicking boy. Her voice was soothing to the red-hot heat that was taking its place in the boy’s chest.

After a little bit, Tobio’s breathing evened out, and he stopped shaking (something he hadn’t realized he was doing). He looked at his grandmother with a confused and scared expression and she just sighed, put on a wobbly smile, and hugged him tight. Tobio felt confused, but he didn’t say anything as she squeezed him tightly, his cheek squished against her shoulder.

After a while, Tobio’s grandmother said quietly, “let’s eat.” She moved away from the boy, her eyes shining with unshed tears and she swiped at her warm brown eyes. Tobio shakily picked up his chopsticks, and ate his dinner in silence.

The katsudon was cold.

***

Tobio lived with his grandmother for a few reasons. She was his mother’s mother, of which Tobio’s mother dumped him onto his grandmother at the tender age of seventeen. His grandmother always told him that he was one of the best things that she had in her life. But Tobio knew that she was just trying to make him feel better.

He was a mistake. A surprise accident. His mother (a beautiful, brown-haired, brown-eyed woman, of which Tobio looked nothing like) and his father (of whom Tobio didn’t even know the name of) had been partying on his mother’s sixteenth birthday. They had sex and the condom broke. His mother wasn’t on birth control, either. They both had been hopeful that they would get lucky with not having his mother get pregnant. 

They were sadly wrong.

A few months later, his mother had called his father, and just like that, everything was real. Everything was changing. His mother refused to get an abortion, even after some consoling of her friends for it. About six months later, Tobio was born, and due to his mother’s asking, he took her last name instead of the absent father’s.

From the beginning, his grandmother had been the main caretaker of Tobio. She had fed him, bathed him, housed him, and clothed him. She played with him when he was happy, cuddled him when he was sad, and consoled him when he had problems. His mother hadn’t.

Tobio used to be bitter about the whole ordeal, when it was first told to him at the tender age of seven after he had asked his grandmother why all the other kids could bring their parents in for bring your mom/dad into school day. He remembered his grandmother had sighed, and put on a weak smile and told him to sit down on the couch in the small living room of their apartment. After it was all done, Tobio was crying angry tears, feeling unhappy with his parents’ decision to leave Tobio alone and live their lives without him.

“Tobio-chan, shh, baby shh…” His grandmother had cuddled his head against her chest while the boy stood stiff against her. His grandmother sighed lightly, and placed a kiss on top of Tobio’s head, and ruffled his black locks with her warm fingers. 

“I love you so, so much Tobio-chan.” She had whispered in his ear, rustling the soft black strands against his head. “I love you more than you could ever know, Tobio-chan.” And they just sat there for a long while, Tobio crying angry tears, and his grandmother hugging him tightly and whispering that she loved him the whole time.

Sitting down after the incident at dinner with the topic of talking to the coaches and Tobio’s minor freak out reminded him of that conversation about his parents he had a long time ago.

“Tobio-chan.” His grandmother’s voice was soft, but stern. Her eyes held a steel that made Tobio shake a little. Was he in trouble? Did he do something wrong? Did he say something that hurt her? He didn’t think so, but what if he had? What if he had  _ hurt _ her? What if-

“Tobio-chan, it’s alright. You’re not in trouble.” His grandmother amended after she saw the shaky, stuttering movement of his chest starting to flare up again. She put her hands up in a placating signal and then she patted the spot next to her on the warm brown couch that sat in their living room. Tobio took shaky steps to the couch, and let his black bookbag slide off his shoulders, landing with a soft  _ thump _ on the hardwood ground.

“D-did I- um. Did I say something w-wrong?” Tobio’s voice fizzled out near the end, all his confidence lost within the first couple of words. His grandmother just looked at him with a melancholy expression on her slightly-wrinkled face. Her lips were quirked downwards and a crease (that was becoming more and more common) was placed in between her dark brown eyebrows. 

“No, baby, not at all.” She said and she bit her lip, looking as nervous as Tobio felt. Why was he sitting here then, if he didn’t do something wrong?

“Tobio-chan, I need you to be honest with me,” she looked at him with a softly pitiful expression. He nodded at her and he squeezed his hands and chewed on the insides of his cheeks, a habit he’d had since he was very small.

“Why didn’t you want to talk to your coaches about your situation with the other boys on your team?” She looked like she already knew the answer, but Tobio didn’t say anything about that. He just thought about it and flicked his gaze off to the side before he answered.

“‘Cause it’s stupid. M-my problem, I mean.” His dark blue eyes found his grandmother’s brown, and she looked like she was waiting for more, so Tobio continued, albeit hesitantly. “Um… I- I was afraid that they were gonna laugh at me.” He saw his grandmother’s face and he started to shake a little, body vibrating with nerves.

“I-I know it’s fuc-freakin’ stupid. B-but everyone j-judges me when I say-say something. Everything I s-say ‘s stupid.” He mumbled, and he could hear his grandmother sigh, and Tobio’s heart felt like it might crack. He really  _ was _ an idiot.

“Baby, I think you’ve got social anxiety.” His grandmother said, and with those words, they changed Tobio’s entire world. 

He had a mental disorder that made him  _ think _ everyone was judging him, that everything that he said was useless and so was he. It was why his heart rate would randomly spike whenever he thought about talking with people. It was why he felt like crying after being called on for a question by the teacher. It was why he  _ cried _ when he got the question wrong that the teacher had asked.

He had a problem, and his grandmother offered to take him to someone, a therapist, but Tobio outright refused, not wanting to burden his grandmother and the person he’d be talking to with his stupid problems that he should be able to get over by himself. 

(He really did think that, but also he barely told his  _ grandmother _ about what he was feeling, Tobio didn’t think he could tell a stranger).

So, Tobio continued on with his life as a third-year, socially anxious, volleyball player. He won games with his team, becoming the best setter he could be in that moment. Tobio  _ knew _ he was good at volleyball; it was the only thing other adults and peers besides his grandmother told him he  _ was _ good at. It made Tobio feel special, being a part of a team like Kitagawa Daiichi. He knew that they didn’t like him, but he felt like he could make the team  _ good _ . Having a spiker hit his tosses felt like a connection to people, to his teammates, that he couldn’t get by talking and hanging out with them. 

When Tobio had seen the short redhead spike the ball from a terrible toss, and his body was moving so fast it was hard for Tobio to process, he felt his shakily stable world that he had built with his volleyball team turn on its axis, and the setter felt his feet slip from it. He felt like he was falling, falling, falling. He didn’t know what to  _ do _ . He was so  _ angry _ and  _ jealous _ that he walked up to the ginger after Kitagawa Daiichi had won the game and he  _ spoke _ to the short boy.

_ “What were you doing for the last three years?” _

The ginger had ran down the steps to speak to Tobio and the black-haired boy felt the familiar anxiety make its way into his chest, but he just placed his scowl further onto his face. He wasn’t expecting the challenge the other boy had issued to him, that he was going to stand on his own on the court and  _ beat _ Tobio. 

Tobio didn’t know what to do with this, and before he could sort out _why_ the redhead had bothered him so much to make him _speak_ _willingly_ to another person, the redhead was gone. And Tobio fully expected to never see him again. Just another person that he would pass by in his life.

Then, on the final tournament game, Tobio was benched after he tossed and  _ no one was there _ . He guessed that it was all his fault, he  _ knew  _ it was all his fault. After all, who would listen to the King of the Court, if the King was a tyrant and ruled the court with an iron thumb? Who would listen to an asshole who told them to be better, who told them that they were useless if they couldn’t hit his tosses? That they were useless when it came to winning, so he wouldn’t toss to those he didn’t deem essential to winning?

It broke something in Tobio, and his social anxiety spiked to record highs. He could barely talk to  _ anyone _ (sans his grandmother, but he  _ had _ been more quiet recently). 

Then he went to Karasuno and had a ball hit him in the head as the redheaded boy asked him while yelling; “Why’re you here?!” Tobio had stood stock-still at the question, trying to gather his bearings and trying to calm himself down from the nervous high he was working himself into. His hands were shaking as he picked up the volleyball.

“Y-you’re that guy from last year.” Tobio said, and the redhead nodded, fluffy orange hair nodding with him. 

“I don’t know your name.” Tobio said simply, and then he felt a heated blush trying to make its way onto his face as the redhead jolted and looked upset by this fact. He fumbled with the volleyball in his hands, trying to distract himself from his hopeless communication skills and from the panic that was trying to make itself  _ very _ known in his breathing pattern.

“My name is Hinata Shouyou!” For some reason, hearing this name made Tobio suck a breath in. The sun from the open gym door lit the back of Hinata, showing a glowing outline around the teen’s body.

Tobio felt something inside him crash, and he just hoped it wasn’t loud enough for Hinata to hear it.


End file.
